CBS snap poll: Obama edges Romney in second debate

10/16/12 11:21 PM EDT

It's not the crushing victory you'd imagine based on Democrats' ebullience online and in the spin room, but the CBS insta-poll on tonight's debate gives Obama a small edge over Romney with many voters calling it a tie:

Thirty-seven percent of respondents in the CBS poll said Obama won, while 30 percent picked Romney and 33 percent said it was a draw.

It bears repeating, over and over, that these snap polls only tell us so much about the impact of these debates. Realistically, we may not get a full picture of whether and how the Hofstra debate changed the race, before the next debate on Monday in Florida. So the prudent thing to do here is to watch the big-picture trends as they emerge in national and swing-state surveys over the next 10 days.